Wasp Spider seen feeding on a Manston trip... oh and Venger....

[Steve H]

Hi all,
Finally a small break in the weather and I trundled off to Manston to see what was about.
A fair few Dragonflys and Damselflies,Common blue butterflies,Burnet moths,Lizards everywhere (have uploaded a shot of some lizards and a single fly that landed but not approved yet) many other flora and fauna,including a Cornish rare heather that has suddenly appeared at Manston in the south east??! I dont know the name but will add a photo when I find out...................

I specifically went to find Wasp Spiders and after a long time searching it seems once you focus on one you then seen loads!
I spent two hours in cloudy weather which was rubbish for taking photos to try and capture something getting caught and eaten by one.

Just before packing up a grass hopper jumped into the web,and the spider was instantly at it, as seen in the first shot below I could see the web shooting out of the spider until it was trapped and then the prey was left in the lower half of the web,I could see the hopper was still alive (in a fashion) and the wasp spider left one of it's legs attached to a thread directly to the prey.
Myself a complete novice regarding spiders is this usual spider practice?to leave it dying I suppose?

Oh and Venger I was going to try the UV test for you, but out of all the webs I saw only one had a small start to a stabilimentum so I hazard a guess these are new webs?
I will try again anyway.

Anyway it was quite a thing to see and will add images of the lizards on here if they are approved.

Regards
Steve

[Ollie]

Excellent photos Steve nature in the raw caught superbly.
Roger

[Wild-Woman]

Cooo wee! Sharp shots and great detail! Brilliant behavioural macro. Well done Steve!

[Steve H]

Thanks Roger and Jules

[Venger]

In general, more mature spiders don't put stabilmentum's in their webs - so it could be that I've missed my chance.
Cool pictures though.

V

[Steve H]

Venger,
At this site the Waps spiders have only appeared in the last week or so according to the reserve manager so maybe that chance has not been missed..
As I said will visit again and see

Regards
Steve